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I'm sure there are plenty of resources on this topic, but I don't know what
keywords to use to find them.

I want to know how you might create a noun by saying that the noun does
something.

For example,

> _I saw the cow that ate vegetables at the shop_

Would be something like

> 店で[牛は野菜を食べた]を見た。

The bracketed part of the above sentence is the clause that I don't know how
to turn into a noun.

Note that I'm not looking for a sentence like

> 店で牛は野菜を食べていることを見た。

That would mean

> _I saw the cow eating vegetables at the shop_

Because the cow did not eat the vegetables while I saw it, that's just how I'm
identifying the cow.

Hopefully, the question is clear. Thanks in advance.

**Edit** Even a name for what this is called so that I can do further reading
would be invaluable.


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grammar verbs relative-clauses nominalization
How to say "that" as in "the cow that ate" in Japanese?


The grammatical term you're looking for is _relative clause_ (関係節 or 連体修飾節 in
Japanese).

With this keyword, you should be able to find enough articles, but this answer
is a good starter: <https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/14550/5010>


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Thanks to @ZLK 's comment @naruto 's answer:

These are called relative clauses. They're constructed by simply writing the
clause without the subject and then placing the subject afterwards.

Thus,

> _At the shop I saw the cow that ate vegetables_

becomes

> 店で野菜を食べた牛を見ました。


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In addition to naruto's answer, I'd like to point out that the relative clause
"that" that's used in English (even in this very sentence) doesn't exist in
Japanese, simply because the structure of the language is different.

It might be easier to explain using examples.

Let's look at your sample sentence in English.

> I saw the cow that ate vegetables at the shop.

(I assume here that you mean you _saw the cow ... at the shop_ , and not that
_the cow ... ate vegetables at the shop_.)

Here, the phrase _that ate the vegetables_ describes something about _the
cow_. If we rephrase this as an independent statement, _the cow ate
vegetables_. Translated to Japanese, 牛【うし】は野菜【やさい】を食【た】べた.

If we want to say something else about the cow, and use the _vegetable eating_
as a description of the cow, in English we turn it into a relative clause, and
use that "that" to connect the clause to the noun.

In Japanese, however, **we don't need the "that"**. Verbs and verb phrases can
directly modify nouns, so we just stick the whole verb phrase in front of the
noun.

So if we want to turn the independent statement,

> 牛【うし】は野菜【やさい】を食【た】べた

... into a relative clause in Japanese, we get:

> 野菜【やさい】を食【た】べた牛【うし】

Literally, _the vegetables-ate cow_.

For your simpler sentence, you're just saying:

> I saw the cow ... at the store.
>
> 店【みせ】で...牛【うし】を見【み】た。

To add our clause to describe more about the cow, we just add that in at the
... Again, English requires the "that", but Japanese doesn't:

> I saw the cow _that ate vegetables_ at the store.
>
> 店【みせ】で **野菜【やさい】を食【た】べた** 牛【うし】を見【み】た。


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